‘IS could expand to Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey’

The Islamic State has the potential to affect the entire Levant, though only few states in the region are contributing to the effort to fight this threat, the CEO at Country Risk Solutions, Daniel Wagner told RT.

On September 12 the US announced for the first time that it is “at war
with the Islamic State / ISIS in the same way it was at war with
Al-Qaeda and its affiliates.”

The British PM David Cameron vowed to work with the US and
support military action against the ISIS after the beheading of the UK aid worker David Haines.

The ambitious expanding of ISIS in the Middle Eastern region
pushes more and more countries to cooperate in taking joint
action against the potential threat. On Monday, an international
summit of foreign ministers aimed at
combating the jihadist group opened in Paris, with around 40
countries, including 10 Arab states, signing up to a coalition to
help fight ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

“If ISIS metastasize like Al-Qaeda, it could become much
larger that an immediate regional threat, otherwise, it will
remain primarily a Syrian and Iraqi problem”, Wagner said.

RT:The US anti-terror campaigns against the
Taliban and Al-Qaeda are widely considered to have failed. The
White House now says it's at war with Islamic State. How will
this be different?

Daniel Wagner: It will be different because it
will be coming on the heels of two failures you have just
described. Part of the issue here is a change in the psyche of
the American people. When America went into the two wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq it was very different: it was on the heels
of 9/11, it was at the start of the “war on terror.”
Now, 10 or 12 years later, it’s a very different proposition
because all of the money, the effort, the personnel, the time
that was spent to fight those two wars didn’t yield the outcome
that people hoped and expected. In fact, just the opposite
occurred. So going into this potential conflict, many people are
weary of what that means and cynical about what the outcome will
be.

RT:The United States says it will use
airstrikes on Syrian territory as a means to battle the ISIS
threat. But Syria hasn't agreed to this. Why is Washington so
unwilling to team up with President Bashar Assad regime in the
fight against Islamic State?

DW: Part of it is the face-saving issue. The US
government has called for the ousting of Assad almost since the
beginning of the Syrian conflict. For it to reverse course now,
and to suggest that Mr. Assad will be a suitable partner - it is
just not going to happen. Even though the staying power of Mr.
Assad and the fact that he has proven to be a very cunning
political tactician is not enough to warrant change of course, or
a public change of position about whether he will be a suitable
partner or not. This is interesting also because the US faces the
same issue with Iran. Having had so many lengthy conflicts with
Iran in the battle of international opinion to the very idea of
potentially partnering with Iran to battle the Islamic State
presented the US with a real dilemma.

RT: How likely are the US allies to join in and
how will this plan being viewed by the international community?

DW: My expectation is that the coalition of the
willing, whether it’s 10 states or more than 10 states, will
probably follow the US lead. That doesn’t mean that every member
of the coalition would participate in a bombing campaign in
Syria.

But at this stage of the game the relations that most of the
coalition members have with Syria is such that whatever the
Syrian regime says it wants, it is probably not going to make
much of a difference. If the roles are reversed and the Syrians
were going to be bombing one of the coalition countries, of
course it would make a big difference. The question becomes
whether the Syrians are actually capable of bombing, of taking US
or coalition aircraft and blowing them out of the sky. If they
are successful in doing that, if they are going to do that, that
could make a real difference in the willingness of the US to keep
bombing inside Syria.

RT:The number of ISIS fighters has been
estimated to be 20,000-32,000 fighters and is growing. How big of
a risk does ISIS pose for the world?

DW: ISIS poses a real risk for the immediate
region at the moment. The question becomes, to what extent they
can metastasize? Will they metastasize like Al-Qaeda has
metastasized? If so, it could become much larger than an
immediate regional threat. If not, then it will remain primarily
a Syrian and Iraqi problem. However, given how fast ISIS has
developed, how much it has expanded and how many recruits it is
attracting in a very short period of time, it’s not unreasonable
to expect that there will be many more such recruits in the
future, and that the conflict could indeed expand beyond the
borders of Iraq and Syria.

RT:In your opinion does ISIS pose a direct
threat to the United States?

DW: ISIS doesn’t pose a direct threat to the US
at this time. The concern that the US government has, as well as
the governments of Europe, Australia and other coalition members
around the world, is that citizens from their countries will
return and wage jihad on the homeland of those particular
countries. How realistic is that? If you take the approach like
the UK government has done and revoke the passports of the 500 UK
citizens who have apparently joined the ranks of the IS, it would
clearly greatly reduce the risk. Will the US government do that?
I don’t know that they will. It seems to me like it would be a
very sensible thing to do, but it’s a very complicated thing from
a legal prospective.

RT:ISIS has been expanding their controlled
territory at a rapid pace. How far are they planning on
going?

DW: The Islamic State has the potential to
affect the entire Levant. So the territory that they possess now,
which is roughly a third of Iraq and roughly a third of Syria,
could certainly expand among the countries in the crosshairs, of
Jordan, Lebanon and even Turkey perhaps. So these governments are
very mindful of the risk, and they are also very mindful of the
need for them to participate in the potential solution.

One of the issues of great concern now is how few countries in
the region are contributing to the effort. It seems that they are
just very happy for the US and other coalition partners to do the
work that is needed in order to start to reverse the tide of IS.
If more regional countries were participating not only with money
but with material, with fighting forces, perhaps the battle would
be somewhat easier. You would think, given the long-term risk
that these countries have as a result of the existence of IS,
that they would want to do just that. Time will tell whether they
will.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.